Blogging will be brief today as we clean up after yet another one/two punch from Mother Nature. This has been a year of extremes with record breaking snowfall here last Feburary, record flooding at our lake house in May and now record rainfall here in Chicago last night.
The temperatures last evening dropped to a pleasing 73 degrees, which was a nice break from the 100 plus we've been experiencing the past few days. Then the storm hit....According to the Chicago Tribune we got socked with 5.5" of rain in TWO hours last night, with overall rain totals in my area of over 6". This is the largest single-day rainfall on record in the Chicago area since records began in 1871.
I have never seen anything like it. We sat up most of the night watching out the windows in awe. Rain fell in sheets so thick we could barely see across our back deck. Constant thunder rocked the house and the continueous lightening kept the sky almost constantly bright for 3 entire hours. I was shocked that our electricity remained intact, but our roof leaked and rain poured through the cam lights in our kitchen like a waterfall.
Today we are mopping up but fortunately nothing here seems to be damaged too badly. Our pool has overflowed, our lawn chairs were strewn across the yard, and a few sections of fencing need to be repaired. Others in our area did not fare as well.
Our friends across the street have several inches of water in their basement and my sisters basement has seepage. The Des Plaines river has overflowed its banks, resulting in streets and businesses being shut down. Power lines are down, electricity in some areas is out, entire city blocks are flooded and of course O'Hare Airport is backed up again. Such is life in Chicago!
Back to mopping up - see you tomorrow!
Oh my goddness - we've been getting lots of rain but nothing like that. Take good care of yourselves.
ReplyDeleteAlways optimistic, you guys received free power washing compliments of Mother Nature. Good thing you didn't have any damage! Isn't it crazy, here in North East PA it was a beautiful evening.The kids had a campfire with their Grandparents and we swam until midnight talking about all the good times we've had and we laughed like high school kids. It was quite nice.
ReplyDeleteThe weather has been really weird everywhere. I'm starting to buy into that 2012 thing, lol!
You can send some of that rain down here! We aren't getting quite enough. Huge bummer about the leaks, and having to cleanup! What is up with the weather the last few years? It seems to be getting more erratic than ever.
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